Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-28

them. NY father held, and no one
could controvert him, that the mono
gamic craze had no foundation in
Christian doctrine or teaching, and
was in fact directly opposed to it. The
objections to dual marriages were now,
and always had been civil and politi-
cal, not religious; and whenever the
civil law permitted polygamy, it was
right and proper and moral, and the
highest duty of Christian, whose
religious teachings held it in honor to
practice it. Mother never agreed
with this, but we saw the logic and the
force of the reasoning, and we always
sided with him. If the law made
Mary legal wife, as it unquestiona-
bly, did, she did not care two pins
whether the first wife returned or not.
"And so they were married. He,
as you know, is worth several mil
..5ns. ".5ns Every pleasure and every
luxury that thoughtfulness and love
could suggest were showered on us.
No son ever tried to make a mother
happy as he tried to make ours. We
were one family. do not think any
one of us ever had such perfect and
divine rest for two years as that
which followed Mary's marriage-for
Robert as we'll as for us.
Do you wonder that l learned to
love him wholly, completely, per-
fectly? And yet so thoroughly were
our four lives but one perfect life that
l should never have realized the
change, or been aware of it even now,
but for an accident. From the time l
discovered my secret 4 was in pain
that often became agony, and l
longed to run away and hide-why, l
know not.
"When told Mary she kissed me
and said: Wait. Do not bind your
self for few days She would not
then tell me why, nor could l imagine
her reason. saw from her manner
that something had happened, and
waited.
ROBERT NEEDS ANOTHER WIFE.
"During the preceding three months
Robert had been noticeably graver
and sadder. We had all observed that
he had lost some of his bright cheer
fulness and set it down to indigestion
and malaria, from which he was
chronic sufferer. Later knew it
came from his bitter fight against his
love for me-which he realized long
before l discovered mine for him.
"What happened, how Mary dis
covered it, or coaxed his secret from
him, | am not goidg to tell you, be-
cause | don't know. She had shared
it with him for three days when told
her was going to Europe, and it was
that, she told me long after, that gave
her the first intimation that | had
been wounded by the same arrow.
That night, with her arms around
my neck, she made me confess.
MARY insisted that our love was
right and proper, refused to listen for
a moment to any apologies and
brushed aside as nonsense any ap-
proach to tragedy. 1t was high COM
edy, but no tragedy. Her proposal
was that we should act as sensible,
rational beings, and, without any loss
of love and affections as we then
stood, Robert and she-in fact, all of
us-were to take residence in Con-
necticut, and Robert was to get di-
vOrce anu marry me.
81 declined to take any part in such
action. NY refusal was decided, and
she knew it would be useless to urge
me. My outspoken reasons were sim
ply that no husband ever got a legal
divorce without the wife's character
suffering. She would lose frightfully
in position. in everything, as divorced
wife. My real objection was that
there was no more reason why she
should sacrifice herself to me than l
to her.
"Well, there we were, with no solu-
luton of the difficulty that was accept
able. She claimed the right to abso-
lutte dictatorship, and decreed that we
should act sensibly, stop all thought
OF going away and love one another in
a rational manner and without making
sin of an innocent matter, until some
way out of the snarl should be seen
and approved.
"You cannot imagine what effect
her quiet words had on me, and on
Robert also. 1t made me ashamed of
my tragedy feelings. In half an hour
we were talking as unconstrainedly as
if we had not been 'slumbering on a
volcano That's the right phrase, is
| it not?
"You may think there was some
embarrassment, but there was not the
slightest. Robert had kissed me often
during the first year marriage. We
used to walk up and down ON the
pleasant evenings, with his arms
around our waists. No stranger
could, by watching, have decided
which was the wife and which the
sister.
'"This is not bit like the story
books, l know; and / am very sorry
for it. can only tell you what really
happened. There were no stolen in
terviews, no broken hearts, no passion
ate vows, and no secrets revealed to
villains and kept back from friends.
1t was all utterly and completely COM
monplace. We were as happy as any
three children. If Rob felt like kiss
ing me, he did. If felt like kissing
him, / did. Commonplace is hardly
strong enough to express the situation
at our home for month or more after
Mary forced an explanation. We
were stupid-postively stupid.
"Mary referred once or twice to the
subject of a divorce, but l would not
listen.
THE METHOD FOUND.
Zone day a visitor was explaining
that her husband had two wives and
Mary listened attentively. l did not.
Then she followed up the case by con-
sulting lawyer and asking questions.
When she was sure of her ground, she
proposed that Robert should go to
Chicago and apply for a divorce. She
would not contest it, nor leave the
State, unless he wished. The divorce
would then be valid in Illinois, and
Robert could marry in that State.
Such marriage would be lawful in
this State and in any State. The
Il.